Kathleen
June 2, 2014
Ah, Cartegena, colonial tropical paradise…we had heard so many good things about this town that we couldn’t wait to get there. We had a whole 5 nights, and the town and the beach awaited! The first night, by the time we were settled in, it was dark, but the town was lovely to walk around at night time, narrow streets with lovely colonial buildings, lighted churches and the wall surrounding the core lit up as well. We walked into the main square where there was a lovely restaurant, sat down, and proceeded to sweat throughout dinner….Cartegena is HOT and HUMID, oh my. I guess Steve and I (both born in Michigan) do not do particularly well in the heat and even more so the humidity. We would be sweaty within five minutes of adventuring outside of our thankfully air-conditioned apartment. I kind of hate to admit that we are such wimps, it is not like we didn’t know Cartegena was tropical, but it felt pretty extreme when we were there. Probably the most fun was walking along the city walls at night, as the sun was setting because you could get the breeze off of the water and it would keep you pretty cool. There was actually a restaurant/bar set up on one of the battlments, and we walked along the wall to get there on a couple of different nights to enjoy the sunset with a view.
Apparently, Cartegena is only 2.5 hours by plane from Miami, and we can definately see this as a great get-away for a long week-end or week-long vacation. There is an expansive beach that starts right outside of the old town with many many apartment buildings and hotels as well as many luxurious boutique hotels in the old town area with lovely courtyards and/or delightful roof decks and pools.
Columbia is known for its emeralds and there are lots of fine jewelry shops in town as well, if that is your thing. We went to a small gold museum in the colonial old town and found the exhibit quite enjoyable.
We spent a day sampling different beaches, had some very good carribean/s, american food and got around to see a few of the city’s main sites, most noteably the fort which towers outside the walled city.
We enjoyed our stay but I must admit that we were pleased to arrive in Medellin (pronounced Mel-eh-JIN), which is in the interior of the country but at a higher altitude so the weather was much milder.
